Ukrainians Return Home From U.S. to Fight Against Russia

After two years of surgeries and rehabilitation in America, a partially paralyzed Ukrainian wounded warrior has returned to the war zone in a wheelchair.

“To help however I’ll be useful,” Oleh Ivakhniuk told The Daily Beast in Ukrainian after arriving back at his home in Kalush on Monday.

Ivakhniuk suffered multiple 50-caliber gunshot wounds during an ambush by Russian-backed separatists in a Donbas sunflower field on July 18, 2014. He says that he and those who fought with him in the protracted conflict in eastern Ukraine felt sure that Russia would ultimately seek to subjugate their entire country.

“Unfortunately, not many believed that [at the time] and that was the most painful [part],” the 36-year-old professional soccer player-turned-soldier told The Daily Beast, adding that stopping Russia “was what we were fighting for.”

After 25 surgeries, he was still in need of more advanced medical care than was available in his homeland. He came to the attention of the non-profit group, Revived Soldiers Ukraine, which has been assisting wounded warriors there since 2015.

The organization was founded by 39-year-old Iryna Vashchuk Discipio, a University of Southern California all-American cross country star who once appeared on the cover of Runners magazine.

The first soldier she assisted had been badly burned battling Russians in 2014. She flew him in business class on Ukrainian Airlines to New York and then by private plane to the MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio.

“They restore his skin,” she told The Daily Beast this week. “He lost one eye, but they saved an arm that was really badly injured.”

In 2015, Discipio transported another soldier who had been critically wounded in the stomach to Yale University Hospital, where he died 14 months later despite the doctors’ best efforts.

Volodymyr Kovalskyi, who lost both his legs in combat, was among 50 soldiers which the organization has flown to the U.S. for treatment. Discipio arranged for Kovalskyi to be outfitted by Prosthetic & Orthotic Associates of Orlando, Florida.

“They gifted him running legs,” Discipio told The Daily Beast.

After he received his new legs, Kovalskyi returned to combat in Ukraine where he was killed on Sunday, just outside Kyiv.

“He was defending his city,” Discipio said. “Russians kill him. And it's just devastating. I can't cry because we have so much work to do.”

This was the same day that Oleh Ivakhniuk headed home from Chicago. Revived Soldiers Ukraine had arranged for him to live in the rectory of the St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Church since Nov. 1, 2019. He had been the seventh wounded warrior lodged there.

“We usually take the heavy ones, the most wounded guys with the wheelchair[s],” the pastor, Father Mykola Buryadnyk, told The Daily Beast, adding that his wife is a nurse practitioner.

During his two years in Chicago, Ivakhniuk underwent three major surgeries at Swedish Covenant Hospital, followed by treatment at Next Step, one of several rehabilitation centers that have been set up by Revived Soldiers Ukraine. He can now use a walker for short distances, but he remained wheelchair dependent when the Russians launched the invasion that he had felt was sure to come.

The Russians swept into Discipio’s hometown, Irpim, where Revived Soldiers Ukraine had set-up a Next Step rehabilitation for other paralyzed soldiers. Discipio reported that her mother had escaped across the border, but her father was turned back because he had not brought his vaccination card. Discipio herself was in America, arranging shipments of body armor, satellite phones, medical supplies, and 10 ambulances.

“So at least people can survive and defend,” she said.

By then, Ivakhniuk had informed the pastor that he was heading back to Ukraine.

“He wants to do whatever he can, load ammunition, whatever,” Buryadnyk said. “He wants to at least train some of the guys there so they can go to the front lines.”

At 9:40 am on Sunday, Ivakhniuk departed Chicago on a LOT Polish Airlines flight to Warsaw.

“God bless you, brother,” Buryadnyk recalled saying as the soldier departed. “Be careful.”

“I love all you guys,” Ivakhniuk said. “Thank you all for helping.”

The soldier and the pastor then offered each other a new addition to the traditional Catholic Ukrainian saying, “Glory be Jesus Christ.”

“Glory to Ukraine.”

Fellow Urainians met Ivakhniuk at the Warsaw airport and put him on a bus. He messaged Buryadnyk late Monday morning Chicago time.

“He said, ‘I’m home,’” Buryadnyk told The Daily Beast.

Buryadnyk suspected that Ivakhniuk will want to do more than just train others to join the fighting.

“He doesn’t want to tell me exactly where he is,” Buryadnyk said. “He doesn't want me to be worried. But, he's going to be going. You know, these guys, they cannot just wait.”

On Wednesday, Ivakhniuk told The Daily Beast that he was home in Kalush. He said his 17-year-old daughter had been able to cross the border to safety. He was staying in Ukraine, to do whatever he could, though not necessarily to fight

“I hope people understand now what it was for, and for who,” he said.